The lowest of the lows was getting divorced! Clearly not something anybody wants or plans on happening and as one friend pointed out I hate to fail and to me this is a failure. Which brings us to low point number 2 Comrades….. See point one for reasons of not finishing….. At the time I was on a bit of an emotional roller coaster and my mind was not in the race. I knew before starting I was not going to finish but I wanted to start all the same.

The then highs, of which there are many.

The biggest high is how proud I am of myself. I feel like I have taken control of my life and I bought and renovated a house which Kaylin and I now live in.

When I first showed my brother my house he looked at me and asked what the hell I had done. It was a dump! The before photos don’t really show just how bad it was.

I called in the professionals for the heavy stuff – replacing the kitchen, the bathroom, the flooring and bricking in a doorway but other than that I did it all myself. In 5 weeks I totally renovated the inside of a smallish 3 bedroom double storey townhouse. I painted it from top to bottom myself, this included the ceilings and skirting’s; and when I say by myself that is exactly what I mean. I prepped, I filled, I sanded and I even plastered one section. I worked FLIPPEN hard! My brother helped me put up the curtain rails but I put up everything else – the towel rails, pictures etc. The only thing that has me stumped a little is upstairs is drywall and I am not sure how to hang pictures on that…. (so far the ones that are up use double sided Velcro tape). I will do a more detailed blog post with before’s and after’s. The day we moved in I fetched Krypto from Animal Welfare…. Don’t get a puppy the day you move house!!!! Having him in our lives is a high though.

Ok, so I didn’t do it all by myself. I had a little helper.

The other high was finishing the Otter Trail Run in 10h25 a full 35 minutes under the 11 hour cut-off…. I realised then how motivated I am by a medal. At one stage when it did not look like we were going to make under the cut-off I said to my sister “I have to have this medal, I have had a disastrous year, I NEED this medal” So we ran – thank goodness it is a flippen big medal because we worked hard for that damn thing! I am very pleased I did it – I won’t EVER be doing that race again (this time I am serious NEVER EVER)

The Otter Trail – at the start. Before the torrential rain, gale force winds and pain beganThe MEDAL. Just as well is is BIG!

Other highs… I love having a 5 year old (most of the time) She is still hard work but getting better.

Doing Micro Nippers and loving it

My gorgeous sister got married to an awesome guy in April. The 3 of us ran did the Otter Trail together and at one point near the end when we were actually running he said to me. “We are doing so well, we are going to make this. Pamela, you are setting a cracking pace……” which I felt I was, until I looked at my watch…. 8:40m/km It was however our fasted kilometer in the whole race.

Krypto – my cute street puppy…. I went to a second hand furniture place and outside the door were these guys selling a little puppy… I wanted to try and get them to give it to me as it had a chain around its neck too tight and they were carrying it around by that but they wouldn’t. They then put him in the back of a bakkie and were about to drive off. I could not let that happen so I asked them how much – R150.00 I said I only had R100 so they said ok an gave me the dog…. But now, what do I do with it? Besides the fact that we had a German Shepherd that is not very social we had also had a puppy visit us a few months before that unfortunately passed away from Parvo Virus. The virus can stay alive for up to 6 months on your property and can then infect anther puppy in that time, so I knew I could not take him home. So I took him to Animal Welfare. I said to them that I really wanted him and I knew I was moving in about 4 – 5 weeks’ time and could get him then abut at that moment I just could not keep him. If he found another home they must let him go, but if not I will come back and adopt him. Which I did 6 weeks later – the day we moved.

The day I found him and took him to AWSFinally taking him homeHe has made himself right at home – that is MY bed!

This year has also made me once again realise how awesome my family and friends are. Especially my sister – there nearly a 10 year age difference between us but we still manage to be great friends. I am not sure I would cope so well without her.

My running highs are that fact that I had a PB in nearly every distance this year. 10km, 15km, 21.1km, Marathon and Ultra Marathon. I have been running for 10 years and am getting faster in my 40’s (training more probably helps) I also did my first Trail Ultra – the ADDO 44km and it was AWESOME I have entered that one again for 2016. My 2016 race calendar looks pretty similar to my 2015 one except I am NOT doing the Otter Trail. I might go back and do Dryland. I really missed it this year.

I also finished a couple of paintings this year… in 2014 I didn’t finish any. They are both acrylic on canvas and small 20 cm x 30 cm. I am quite proud of both of them.

An exercise in skin tonesEarly morning outside The Friendly Stranger in PE.

So, all in all I had a good year. I am however hoping that 2016 will be much better!!